Indian restaurant manager guilty of tax fraud in US

Ashfaque Patel has to pay over $50,000 compensation to the internal revenue service.

An Indian American fast food restaurant manager has been handed an 18-month prison term after he was found guilty of tax fraud.

Delivering the verdict Tuesday, US district Judge S Arthur Spiegel ordered Ashfaque Patel, the former manager of Burger King, Greater Cincinnati, to pay over $50,000 compensation to the internal revenue service (IRS).

Federal prosecutors found that Patel was among several employees of the restaurant who helped Angelo DeSimone, managing director of the outlet, to steal money from the branch, according to The Enquirer newspaper.

Prosecutors said Patel and other managers covered up the thefts by not maintaining proper sales registers, voiding sales that had been completed, altering monthly sales figures and changing inventory reports.

The fraud continued from 1996 through 2000.

Patel became the 10th person convicted in the conspiracy and the eighth ordered to serve time in federal prison.

DeSimone was sentenced to three years in prison in 2004 and ordered to pay $370,000 in restitution. Other employees received sentences ranging from probation to five months in prison.